Chapter 6

April 2, 3025

New Branson, Gimli Continent

Suk II

Emily sat down on the ferrocrete curb outside what was probably the only vehicle repair business on the entire continent, in a small rural town of maybe a few thousand people, at best. The local touring companies relied on the owner for service to their off-road fleet they kept down there, but the seasons had changed from comfortably warm in the winter to I must take off everything except my underwear and just lay in front of something that blows air. You know what? The underwear's coming off too.

Which meant in the summer months, business started to drop. Whoever's flag was flying in the center of town or whoever's face was on the local currency when C-bills weren't in play didn't really matter to most rural townsfolk so far from the throes of interstellar warfare. This town probably hadn't seen an off-worlder in a couple years and was seemingly more interested in having someone new to talk to for a little while than what side they were fighting for.

The town's name, New Branson, hadn't even been officially recognized in by the parliament in the capitol yet. Lots of stuff was backlogged after the election earlier this year.

The newly-branded 1st Iron Coyotes had traded the mechanic's time, and the time of anyone else who knew their way around the insides of something that hovered in-town, for a mostly-intact Pegasus. Minus the weapons and ammo. Either they could make a deal with the RoughRiders or the Militia to get something, like some help putting up a small treatment plant of their own so they won't have to get deliveries every week, or perhaps give it to the government Militia as a "show of patriotism or whatever." Or maybe would use it as a fun toy out there where the lizards are about as big as an SRM round. Who knows. Emily didn't really care.

Some of their 'mech techs they brought along with them knew a little about hovers, so they stayed around to learn a few tricks and to keep an eye out for sabotage, which they were much more familiar with.

Raising a bottle of PuriClear, one of the brands of water from the plants shipped down here, Pearl walked over and tossed one to Emily. Standing in front of her with her usual one-hip-to-the-side time of swagger, she gave a wink while Emily took a drink. "So far so good with the Harasser," she said, taking a sip.

"A couple of our techs have small arms in a loose perimeter around the shop if he tries anything with the SRMS. "He says he's going to try and sell the Peg' to the RoughRiders for super cheap when this all blows over. This brings our active tank battalion to a whopping two vehicles. Woowoo." She turned back towards the repair shop. "We still have high hopes for the Saladin, mainly because the 'twenty was still in working order on it. Drive fans that handled most of the forward momentum won't ever get fixed by us, but it'd make a good gun emplacement if things got hot. We could tow it most places as long as the air brakes work."

"Who wanted to gun it?" Emily asked, bottle nearly empty already. It was tough to stay consistently hydrated in this heat when you couldn't boil the local water. Negotiating with the locals to double their rations of PuriClear out in their bivouacs for the later summer months had cost them another looted Harasser from their first engagement. To them, it was worth it. The stuff they brought from the dropship itself still had the ghostly flavor of having just left another person's body.

"Who doesn't want the chance to shoot a 'twenty without all the hassle of driving and maintaining it?" I'm debating calling Torres "Dibs," but "Bullhorn" was better." Pearl shook her head and sipped her own bottle. "That and you beat me to it and made it all official n' shit." The 'twenty referred to the two-hundred-millimeter autocannon mounted to the Saladin. One of the biggest around, it required special programming to add more forward thrust from the engines to offset the recoil that would send it backwards a few meters while hovering.

"Let's let Zol' decide on this one. They've been doing a bang-up job with almost no real working space to use. They could all be spokespeople for Vinyltape with how well they're keeping the stored parts clean." Staff Sgt. Dorek Zolnierczyk, their chief 'mech tech. Kang thought it was best to use a rank structure close to the old Star League, so it didn't sting as much if they went from a contract on one side of a conflict directly to the opposite side when the terms of service ran out. "Little things," he said.

"I really wanted to ask you to ask him to take Gentry off repairing armor. The kid doesn't know how to do legs."

"I'll ask him. At this rate we don't have enough spare armor to make it to noon." Noon was their codeword for the six-month point in the contract where the Combine Liaison would have a dropship primarily set up for field repairs touchdown somewhere near their AO, amidst a lot of other planetary hubbub that would give them a window of a couple days to get the most critical repairs done, swap loot they had essentially buried for now for more parts, ammo, credit towards a higher payout, and other miscellaneous things that made a unit of her size run another six months. Assuming they didn't all get completely obliterated before then. The RoughRiders really seemed to get a kick out of severing arms off their 'mechs.

"Spare parts aside, we're actually increasing in overall tonnage, which is pretty awesome," said Pearl, downing what was left of the bottle and crumpling it up. She leaned back on her hands. "Too damned bad we can't do much with the Griffin just yet. Stupid mud. Stupid wonderful stupid mud."

During the river fight, the Griffin not only got stuck, it continued to get more stuck as the fifty-five-tonner apparently found a nice pocket of air underneath the river and sunk up to its knees. Random rocks and debris jammed up in the left foot, crushing the myomer "muscles" and the actuator inside, making it practically immobile until they found a replacement and a suitable place to actually restore it. They managed to limp it back to their bivouac, but it took almost a day.

"How's Bullhorn liking cleaning out the jump jets of the Griff?" Being able to not only replace your recently-lost battlemech but replace it with one of more value, and almost immediately was incredibly rare for a 'mech jock. Most often times a pilot was dispossessed for long periods of time, or never found another one. Being dispossessed felt worse than death for some people. Like being able to fly and suddenly…not.

Pearl might have missed the joke. "He misses all his lasers and missiles. He was used to running the Jenner. It means he can shoot more often, though. Doesn't toss him around like the Jen did either, so he appreciates that."

The way the Coyotes worked their accounts involved using the money pooled from the four leaders of the company that was able to cover the loss of every light mech they hired for this campaign. Since Bullhorn was compensated, if he lost the Griffin it would come out of his pocket. An expensive risk, but one he was willing to take for now. They gave him a fair bonus every month as thanks for taking on the additional risk for the sake of having enough pilots in all their mechs.

"Good. Ribs ok?"

"Doc says another couple weeks and the hairline fractures will heal."

"OK. I'll try to keep Clothesline's lance off too much duty until he heals. We didn't exactly bring spare 'mech jocks."

The distant sound of grinding metal and laser cutting was briefly interrupted by the far more peaceful sounding of the local Minaret beginning the mid-afternoon call to prayer. Suk II was primarily Islamic, but on the more casual side of it. Neither of the women sitting together were particularly religious, but they wouldn't deny something awesome might have helped shape this war-torn part of the Milky Way they lived in.

"Oh. Nymph offered to tow the Sal anywhere you want, if we were able to rig up a way for her to fire her 'twenty and the Sal's with the same trigger." Emily laughed at that one. Impossible with their existing gear, but a fun idea for the next contract.

"Tell her we'll see if we can work out a way to do that next year."

"Okay." Pearl's hand innocently slid over onto the top of Emily's for a moment. Neither of them said anything. Their unspoken feelings for each other, complicated over the last five years by the fact that either of them could die later that day was made even more complicated by the fact that one was now the commanding officer of the other, with almost ten times the people around that could get the wrong idea than they were used to. Midnight rendezvous in a dropship during transit were one thing, but this…

Emily slid her hand away gently and smiled at her. "We'll figure that part out, babe. Let's keep up appearances for now."

Pearl grinned playfully, white hair with the tiniest bit of grey getting a gentle, welcome breeze. It contrasted even more with her more recent tan she acquired in the last month. She nodded and went back to her original sitting pose, hands to herself. "We could always raid the capitol and retire early…" That brought another laugh from Emily, this one a lot heartier.

Up above, an aerospacer was flying well above the clouds, and very fast. The sound had finally reached down below. Likely doing recon duty, thought Emily. Word had obviously gotten out from a couple more patriotic townsfolk, despite them being few and far between out here. Then word had gotten out to the RoughRiders that a distant town was being "held hostage" while the invaders "pillaged the town for parts and repairs," or some such propaganda. Now that they had eyes-on the Coyotes inside the town, as well as one or two of the Coyote 'mechs on the edge of town making the whole "hostage" ruse look more authentic, VTOLS and other such shenanigans were likely on their way.

Those kinds of shenanigans usually involved heavier 'mechs, which slowed down the response time a bit. She waved to the 'mechs showing a little leg to the RoughRiders, and one flashed his searchlight once in response. Welp, that didn't take long. Someone was already watching Pearl and I share a moment. She sighed."Tell everyone they have five mikes to wrap everything up and to be back in the woods in under ten mikes," Emily said, half-grunting while standing up. She looked up at the aero jock, unsure if the cameras were directly on her lean, one hundred seventy-five cm frame, but waved up to him anyway, and turned to jog towards the jungle and it's viney, scaley, mosquito-infested arms.